Gaaaaah. This week, I swear… If it isn’t the nerve-wracking deadlines at the day job necessitating long, long hours, or family members falling ill, it’s sewage backing up into the shower from a busted line somewhere under the yard. sigh. Ready for it to be done, y’all.

And hey, there’s a darn good-looking pile of shows to kick it off tonight, Friday, September 30th, the top three of which are all practically in an ass-kicking contest to see which one rules the most. First up (in no real order of love, because I love ’em all), there’s the the last place you look show at Warehouse Live. I really, really, really love these guys, both live and on their most recent album, See the Light Inside You, and I cannot freaking wait for the new one — get it done soon, y’all, please?

Seriously, these guys are one of the best heavy-rock/emo/post-emo/etc. bands going today, here or anywhere else, and they’re pretty mind-blowing, IMHO. It helps, too, that they’re playing with both {AThousandColours} and The 71’s, both of whom I’ve liked when I’ve heard ’em, and Austin’s The Soldier Thread, whose awesomely melancholy, atmospheric release Shapes I reviewed & dug quite a bit a few years back.

I’ll admit to being a newcomer to CEG, but I’ve been listening nearly nonstop to their new album, lenses alien, for a few days now, and holy shit is it good — it grabs onto nearly every ’90s indie-rock influence I adore, from Archers of Loaf to the Grifters to Superchunk to The Dismemberment Plan, chews it all up, and spits it right back into your hand as something weird and glistening and new and incredible. Freaking great. Full review here.

As for Hooray For Earth, I’m less familiar with them, but the bits & pieces I have heard have been neato, in a much more dancey, get-down kind of vein. Check out one of their tracks right here:

Hooray For Earth – “No Love”

Rounding out the three is tonight’s bill over at Mango’s, with a full trio of local awesomeness that coincidentally represents three of the H-town scene’s disparate sides — there’s great, great country-folk boys Buxton (whose forthcoming full-length is going to be brilliant, no lie), resurrected prog-metal-whatever guys By the End of Tonight, and Cosmic Sound, the cool-sounding electronic project of Stephen Farris, possibly better known as half of Ghost Mountain; if you’ve heard the GM tracks, I’m betting this’ll sound similar. Good, good, good.

There’s more, but I’m afraid I’m out of time for the moment. Full list? Here you go: